Ly text bankers respond to inquiry, take a page out of Trump playbook in Elk Grove mayor's race

In a sign of the high stakes battle for Elk Grove Mayor between Tracie Stafford, Steve Ly, and Darren Suen, at least one candidate has deployed a cadre of volunteers to text message voters. In an exchange shared by an EGN reader, today a volunteer for Steve Ly campaign has taken a page from Donald Trump's playbook when responding to criticism.

A volunteer claiming to represent the Ly campaign contacted the voter via text message promoting the Ly candidacy as well as a link to a YouTube video. The initial text message tells the voter "he's done a lot for Elk Grove...can we count on your vote for Steve?"

The reader responded to the volunteer asking about information posted on the Facebook page MayorSteveLies, which is being funded by an independent expenditure committee. The readers asked if lose claims being circulated by Alliance to Protect the Middle Class which is operating the Lie Facebook page and bombarding a website with attack ads if information implied about Ly not paying his utility bill are true.

Below is the exchange between the voter and the volunteer.

The volunteer sought to minimize the allegations of the independent expenditure committee and as President Trump has often done to push back on criticism, called the allegations "fake news." The text volunteer also said of the APMC that "they're not comfortable talking about the issues."

Interestingly both Ly and the APMC have incorrectly characterized the role the Elk Grove City Council and the mayor have in the city's budget. In his video, Ly mentions the balanced budget while APMC also overstates the mayor's importance in the process.

Typically, using general guidelines from the city council, the city manager and staff work out the details of the annual budget. Also, balanced budgets for municipalities in California are not optional - they are mandated by state law.

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2 comments

Observing the campaign events of the last 24 hours, it seems there are no sacred cows left in Elk Grove politics. Of course as noted in a comment on a different story, who can forget the "Jack Daniels" mailer from 12 years ago.

Given the venom coming from the fangs of the candidates and surrogates, I might suggest a candidate distribute a gift different from the plants and potholders - a toilet seat cover to protect us from all the manure flying around.